Shock-protected railway crossing

ABSTRACT

A railway crossing protected against impact shock from cars having skewed trucks; an elongated guide rail is positioned ahead of the crossing, spaced from the crossing by at least one full standard rail length, to straighten the wheels of all cars entering the crossing. The guide rail has a long entrance taper to reduce impact shock, and the traffic rails between the guide rail and the crossing are boxed to transfer truck-straightening forces to the roadbed and not to the crossing.

United States Patent 1191 Frank 1 SHOCK-PROTECTED RAILWAY CROSSING [75] Inventor: Earl E. Frank, Tallman, NY.

[73] Assignee: Abex Corporation, New York, NY. [22] Filed: Jan. 30, 1974 [2]] Appl. No.: 437,802

[111 3,893,643 [451 July 8,1975

Primary ExaminerM. Henson Wood, Jr. Assistant ExaminerRichard A. Bertsch Attorney, Agent, or Firml(inzer, Plyer, Dorn & McEachran [57] ABSTRACT A railway crossing protected against impact shock from cars having skewed trucks; an elongated guide rail is positioned ahead of the crossing, spaced from the crossing by at least one full standard rail length, to straighten the wheels of all cars entering the crossing. The guide rail has a long entrance taper to reduce impact shock, and the traffic rails between the guide rail and the crossing are boxed to transfer truckstraightening forces to the roadbed and not to the crossing.

2 Claims, 6 Drawing Figures SHOCK-PROTECTED RAILWAY CROSSING BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The usual concept of railway wheels rolling freely down a track with the wheel flanges aligned parallel to the heads of the rails is quite inaccurate for many operating circumstances. Whenever a railway train traverses a curve in the track, the trucks and wheels on the cars often fail to return to parallel alignment with the rails. Instead, the wheels remain skewed or canted at an appreciable angle with respect to the rails. This is evidenced by a high incidence of sharp flanged wheels on cars that have been in service for substantial periods.

A railway crossing constructed in accordance with the standards laid down by the American Railway Engineering Association incorporates a series of guard rails, mounted in closely spaced relation to the gauge side of each traffic rail, forming extended flange guideways for guiding railway wheels through the crossing. Each of the outer guard rails is flared at its outer end to afford a tapered entrance to the flangeway between the guard rail and the traffic rail. Nevertheless, when a skewed wheel enters the flangeway, a high impact force is often applied to the guard rail and to the traffic rail. With repetition over a substantial period of time, the shock of these impact forces tends to drive the crossing out of alignment, ultimately producing a condition that can be quite dangerous with respect to continuing rail trai fic. This is particularly true in the case of a crossing lo cated near a curve on one of the two intersecting rail lines.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is a principal object of the invention, therefore, to protect a railway crossing from the shock of the impact forces, and the consequent damage, that may otherwise result from the movement of railway cars through the crossing in those instances in which the trucks of the cars are skewed relative to the traffic rails as the result of passage around a curve or other causes.

A more specific object of the invention is to provide a new and improved shock-protected railway crossing that straightens the wheels of incoming cars relative to the traffic rails before the cars reach the rail intersections without requiring a departure from established construction standards for railway crossings.

A further object of the invention, is to provide a new and improved railway crossing construction that is inherently self-protecting with respect to railway cars entering the crossing area with skewed wheels and in which the impact protection is efl'ected by means of simple, durable, and relatively inexpensive wheel guides.

Accordingly, the invention relates to a shockprotected railway crossing, comprising first and second traffic rails crossing each other at a given intersection, and first and second crossing guides, positioned adjacent the crossing segments of the first and second traffic rails respectively, each crossing guide being adapted to guide a railway wheel along its associated traffic rail through the intersection. An elongated guide rail is positioned parallel to the first traffic rail and spaced from the outer end of the first crossing guide by at least one standard length of the traffic rail; the guide rail engages and straightens any skewed wheel moving along the first traffic rail toward the crossing intersection before the wheel reaches the first crossing guide. The outer end of the guide rail has an elongated flare to minimize the shock of engagement of a skewed wheel with the guide rail. Moreover, the portion of the first traffic rail between the guide rail and the crossing guide is firmly anchored to the base on which the first traffic rail is supported, so that the force applied to the guide rail and to the first traffic rail in straightening a skewed wheel is transferred to the base and does not distort the angle of intersection of the two traffic rails.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a plan view of a railway crossing of standard construction, taken from Plan No. 706-59 of the American Railway Engineering Association;

FIG. 2 is a detail sectional view, drawn to an enlarged scale, taken approximately as indicated by line 2-2 in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a further detail sectional view taken approximately along line 33 in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a shock-protected railway crossing constructed in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a detail illustration of the entrance end of a guide rail incorporated in the crossing construction of FIG. 4; and

FIG. 6 is a detail sectional view, drawn to an enlarged scale, taken approximately as indicated by line 66 in FIG. 5.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT FIGS. 1-3 illustrate the standard construction in general use in the United States for railway crossings, as specified by the American Railway Engineering Association. In fact, FIGS. 1-3 are direct reproductions of the drawings from AREA Plan No. 706-59 entitled "Bolted Rail Crossings Angles Below 35 to 25, Inclusive, Two Rail Design". The crossing 10 of FIGS. 1-3 comprises two traffic rails 11 and 12 forming one railway track and intersecting the two traffic rails 13 and I4 of an other railway line. The angle A of intersection of the rails of the two lines may vary within substantial limits; a 30 crossing is illustrated.

In crossing 10, two guard rails 15 and 16 are mounted parallel to the traffic rails 11 and 12, respectively, at one entrance to the crossing. Guard rail 16 is spaced from traffic rail 12 by a flangeway 18 (see FIG. 2). A similar flangeway or guideway 17 is provided between traffic rail 11 and guard rail 15.

The two traffic rails 12 and 13 intersect at a point 19. Beyond the point of intersection, a further guard rail 22 is mounted adjacent traffic rail 12, effectively providing a continuation for guard rail 16. Similarly, a guard rail 21 is positioned adjacent traffic rail 11 beyond the point of intersection between rail II and rail 13. Continuing along rail II, it is seen that an additional guard rail 23 is mounted alongside traffic rail 11 beyond the intersection of rail 11 with traffic rail 14. Furthermore, an additional guard rail 24 is mounted beside traffic rail 12 beyond the intersection of that traffic rail with the crossing traffic rail I4. Thus, the two flangeways l7 and 18 are effectively extended completely through the railway crossing 10; the guard rails 15, 21, 23 and I6, 22, 24 afford a crossing guide for guiding railway wheels moving along rails 11 and 12 completely through the crossing.

Similar crossing guides are provided along traffic rails 13 and 14 as those rails extend through crossing l0. Alongside rail 13, the guard rails are identified by reference numerals 25, 27 and 29, conjointly defining a substantially continuous flangeway 31 traversing crossing 10. Along traffic rail 14. three guard rails 26, 28 and 30 define a substantially continuous guideway or flangeway 32 that extends completely through the crossing.

The outer end of guard rail terminates in a flare 33 that affords a tapered entrance to the flangeway 17 between rails 11 and 15. The length D for flare 33 is specified as two feet by the American Railway Engineering Association. Similar flares are provided on the outer ends of the guard rails that afford the other flangeways 18, 31 and 32, so that there is a graduated throat at the point at which each wheel flange enters the crossing guides of railway crossing 10. It is thus seen that the standard crossing construction 10 illustrated in FIGS. 1-3 incorporates crossing guides that are positioned adjacent the intersecting segments of the traffic rails, each crossing guide being adapted to guide a railway wheel along its associated traffic rail through the intersection.

A filler member 34 is mounted between rails 12 and 16 and a similar filler 35 is positioned between traffic rail 13 and guard rail 25. The flangeway fillers 34 and 35 are formed of rolled steel. Similar fillers are used throughout the standard crossing structure 10 to maintain required flangeway spacing. Corner struts and wedge blocks are also incorporated in crossing 10, and the entire crossing is bolted together with a multiplicity of through bolts to afford a rigid, unified crossing structure.

FIG. 4 illustrates a track layout in which the standard crossing 10 is incorporated in relatively close proximity to one or more curved sections of track. Thus, in the layout of FIG. 4, at one end the traffic rails 13 and 14 connect to a curve comprising the rail segments 13A and 14A. The other end of the track 13, 14 connects to a curved section of the line comprising the rails 13B and 143.

When a train approaches crossing 10 along rails 13 and 14, around curve 13A. 14A, the trucks on the cars become skewed from the desired parallel relation to the rails, and the trucks on a number of cars usually remain skewed after the train leaves the curve. If no ac tion is taken to straighten these wheels before the train reaches crossing 10, substantial impact forces are applied to the crossing guide, guard rails 29 and 30, and to the associated traffic rails 13 and 14 (FIG. 1), as the cars with skewed wheels enter the crossing. Ultimately with repeated use of crossing 10, these forces may drive the crossing out of alignment, distorting the angular positions of the rails within the crossing and creating a potentially hazardous operating condition. The same situ ation applies with respect to a train entering crossing 10 around the curve 13B, 1413. A similar situation may occur with respect to trains approaching crossing 10 along rails 11 and 12, particularly if there is a curve in track I1, 12 near crossing 10.

To protect crossing 10, in the track layout of FIG. 4, against the impact forces that could result from skewed wheels developed by passage of a train around curv- 13A, 14A, an elongated guide rail 38 is mounted paral' lel to and on the inside (gauge side) of traffic rail 13. Guide rail 38 should be positioned at a substantial distance from the outer end of the first crossing guide structure that will be encountered by a train approaching crossing It). More specifically, guide rail 38 should be at least one full standard rail length (thirty-nine feet) and preferably two or three standard rail lengths from crossing 10, as shown in FIG. 4.

As best shown in FIG. 5, the outer end 39 of guide rail 38 is constructed with an elongated flare 39. The length T of flare 39 is made much longer than the stan dard flare length D for the guard rails of crossing 10. Preferably, the length T for flare 39 is at least six to eight feet. As shown in FIG. 4, guide rail 38 is prefera bly a full standard rail length. Flangeway fillers are preferably provided between guide rail 39 and traffic rail 13, as illustrated by the fillers 42 in FIGS. 5 and o. A plurality of track bolts are provided to secure both rails to the flangeway fillers (see FIG. 6) and thus af ford a rigid. accurately aligned guide structure incorporating rails 13 and 38. The other end of guide rail 38 may also be provided with a flare 44 to afford a tapered throat for wheels entering guideway 43 in the opposite direction; flare 44 need not be as long as flare 39.

The sections 41 of rail 13 intermediate crossing l0 and guide rail 38 should all be thoroughly boxed in with rail anchors. That is, rail sections 41 should all be provided with rail anchors on all of the ties that support sections 41 of rail 13, on both sides of the traffic rail.

For the track layout illustrated in FIG. 4, a second elongated guide rail 45 is positioned parallel to traffic rail 14 at a location intermediate curve 13B, 14B and crossing 10. Guide rail 45 should be spaced from the outer end of crossing 10 by at least one standard rail length and preferably by two or three rail lengths as indicated by the intervening rail sections 46. Rail sections 46 are again thoroughly boxed in to all supporting ties with rail anchors on both sides of the rail. Guide rail 45 is provided with end flares 47 and 48; as in the case of guide rail 38, the outer flare 47 should be substantially longer than the standard flare length D for crossing l0 and preferably is of the order of six to eight feet. The mounting arrangement employed for the flared guide rail 45 is the same as described as for guide rail 38.

When a train approaches crossing 10 around curve 13A, 14A, in the track layout illustrated in FIG. 4, it is likely that the trucks on many of the cars will be skewed relative to the traffic rails 13 and 14 rather than being aligned parallel to the traffic rails in the normal manner. As each car in the train approaches crossing 10, it first traverses the portion of the track at which guide rail 38 is mounted. Guide rail 38 engages the flanges on any of the wheels that are skewed relative to the traffic rails and straightens those wheels into approximately parallel relationship to the rails. This straightening action is accomplished well before the cars reach crossing I0.

Because the rail sections 41, intermediate guide rail 38 and crossing 10, are thoroughly boxed in with rail anchors, the force required to straighten skewed trucks on the cars is not transmitted to crossing l0 and does not tend to drive the crossing out of its angular alignment. The force of impact of the skewed wheels with guard rail 38 is limited by the long tapered flare 39 at 5;; leading end of the guard rail. Furthermore, the are that each skewed truck delivers to the guard rail is absorbed and transferred to the ballast constituting the base on which rails 13 and 14 are supported through the rail anchors which secure rail sections 41 to the ties between guard rail 38 and crossing 10. Thus. longitudinal movements of the traffic rails are inhibited and effective shock protection is provided for crossing it). The same basic operation is provided for cars approaching crossing 10 around curve 13B, 1413, through the provision of guide rail 45.

An additional guide rail could be mounted alongside rail M on the same section of the track as guide rail 38. Such a second guide rail, however, is unnecessary; guide rail 38, in straightening any skewed wheels passing through the flangeway 43, effectively straightens the trucks on which the wheels are mounted and hence straightens the wheels traversing rail 14 as well as those moving along rail 13.

in any installation, the guide rail should be positioned adjacent that traffic rail that extends around the outside of the curve in the approach to the crossing. Thus, for the one curve 13A, 14A, the guide rail 38 should be located adjacent the rail 13, whereas for the oppositely directed curve 13B, 148 the guide rail 45 should be positioned adjacent the traffic rail 14, all as shown in FIG. 4. The reason for this alignment of the guide rails is that the trucks on cars moving into crossing 10 from curve 13A, 14A will be skewed with their leading edges directed inwardly toward rail 13 and outwardly from rail 14. Thus, the force of impact against a guide rail positioned in the location illustrated for rail 38 will be much less than for a guide rail in a similar position but adjacent rail 14 in this part of the track.

From the foregoing description, it will be seen that the complete crossing structure illustrated in FIG. 4 affords effective shock protection for railroad crossing l and prevents damage to the crossing that might otherwise result from skewed wheels on cars passing around the curves leading into the crossing. This protection is achieved without departing from the established construction standards for crossing 10; the basic crossing structure 10 conforms fully to existing requirements. Moreover, effective protection is achieved with a simple and relatively inexpensive apparatus comprising a single guard rail for each curved approach to the crossing.

I claim: 1. A shock-protected railway crossing comprising: first and second pairs of parallel traffic rails crossing each other at a crossing intersection; crossing guards positioned adjacent the crossing segments of the traffic rails respectively and each crossing guard being adapted to guide a railway wheel along its associated traffic rail through the intersection; and an elongated guide rail located upstream of said crossing and positioned parallel to and on the gauge side of one of the traffic rails, said guide rail being spaced from the outer end of the related crossing and crossing guard by one to three standard lengths of traffic rail for engaging and straightening any skewed wheel before that wheel reaches the related crossing guard; the outer end of the guide rail having an elongated flare to minimize the shock of engagement of a skewed wheel with said guide rail; and said one traffic rail between the guide rail and the crossing and crossing guard being firmly boxed by said anchor means on both sides to the base on which said one traffic rail is supported so that the force applied to the guide rail and said one traffic rail in straightening a skewed wheel is transferred to the base and does not distort the angle of intersection of the paired traffic rails. 2. A shock-protected railway crossing according to claim 1 in which the flare at the outer end of the guide rail is of the order of six to eight feet in length.

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION PATENT NO. 3,893,643

DATED July 8, 1975 lN\/ ENTOR(S) 2 Earl E Frank tt is certified that error appears in the above-identified patent and that said Letters Patent are hereby corrected as shown below:

Claim 1, line 22, cancel said'k.

Signed and Sealed this RUTH C. MASON C. MARSHALL DANN Alluring Offirer Commissioner oj'latems and Trademarks 

1. A shock-protected railway crossing comprising: first and second pairs of parallel traffic rails crossing each other at a crossing intersection; crossing guards positioned adjacent the crossing segments of the traffic rails respectively and each crossing guard being adapted to guide a railway wheel along its associated traffic rail through the intersection; and an elongated guide rail located upstream of said crossing and positioned parallel to and on the gauge side of one of the traffic rails, said guide rail being spaced from the outer end of the related crossing and crossing guard by one to three standard lengths of traffic rail for engaging and straightening any skewed wheel before that wheel reaches the related crossing guard; the outer end of the guide rail having an elongated flare to minimize the shock of engagement of a skewed wheel with said guide rail; and said one traffic rail between the guide rail and the crossing and crossing guard being firmly boxed by said anchor means on both sides to the base on which said one traffic rail is supported so that the force applied to the guide rail and said one traffic rail in straightening a skewed wheel is transferred to the base and does not distort the angle of intersection of the paired traffic rails.
 2. A shock-protected railway crossing according to claim 1 in which the flare at the outer end of the guide rail is of the order of six to eight feet in length. 